Shady Contractors Benefit from Trump's Mass Detention Policy

Mallory Miller, Kendyl Salcito

Security, Americas

It is time for Congress to amend existing legislation that creates accountability of the government’s business partners, making contractors adhere to the constitution and to protective human-rights laws, just like federal employees must do.

A leaked Department of Homeland Security (DHS) draft memo has revealed that the Trump administration deliberately took infants and children from their parents in an effort to deter asylum seekers from approaching the U.S. border. Buried on page five, the memo highlights who stood to gain from the policy. Section 12 proposes to “direct ICE to explore additional detention capacity by entering into contracts with detention vendors along the border.” By detention “vendors,” the memo is referring to private prison companies, like CoreCivic and GeoGroup, who are among the fastest-growing recipients of DHS funding—thereby joining an array of businesses, from Northrop Grumman to Amazon, that now take in nearly a third of the DHS budget.

Though U.S. taxpayers fund these contracts, they cannot currently hold contractors to the same constitutional and human-rights commitments to which they hold civil servants. Consequently, investors and employees have rightly stepped forward to create financial and reputational pressure on contractors to respect basic human rights—however, they need regulatory support that only Congress can provide. Therefore, it is time for the U.S. Congress to step up and amend existing legislation that creates accountability of the government’s business partners, making contractors adhere to the constitution and to protective human-rights laws, just like federal employees must do.

Corporate Implementation of DHS Border Policies